The Thompson-Nicola Regional District has declared a state of local emergency in order to deal with an illegal dam that could soon fail and cause flooding downstream.
An engineer carried out an assessment on the unauthorized, man-made gravel dam on Fadear Lake Wednesday, Oct. 8. The small, remote lake is located north of Sun Peaks and southeast of Barriere, and the dam is at risk of bursting at any moment.
An evacuation alert was put in place for 14 properties on Fadear Creek Road and adjacent areas Monday evening, Oct. 6, "due to the potential imminent failure of the Fadear Lake dam," the Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) said.
The local state of emergency was declared shortly before noon Wednesday to enable the local government to mitigate the flood risk at the dam.
"This declaration enables prompt coordination of action or special regulation of persons or property to protect the health, safety, or welfare of people or to limit damage to property," the TNRD said.
Emergency powers can now be used to order the evacuation of residents from their homes on Crown land, or prohibit travel or entrance to private property, should any of those actions be deemed necessary if the emergency threatens lives, property or the environment within the TNRD's jurisdiction.
Crews accessed the dam on Wednesday from a road on the east side of the lake, down a steep hill with access from the road by foot only.
"TNRD staff are working with engineers to determine what work can be done in the immediate term, and how equipment may be able to access the dam site and do emergency works," TNRD communications manager Colton Davies said by email Thursday.
Davies told Black Press Media the evacuation alert is not expected to change, unless there is a significant change at the dam affecting Fadear Creek.
The dam is an unauthorized man-made gravel structure at the end of Fadear Lake, on Crown land, where the lake drains into Fadear Creek. The regional district only became aware of the dam on Monday afternoon, having been informed by the Ministry of Water, Lands, and Resource Stewardship of its existence.
The water has slowly started to rise in the lake as culverts in the wall of the dam have been partially blocked by debris, Davies said Wednesday morning.
"The lake level has started to rise and now there's a risk of water flowing over top of this gravel dam structure," Davies said. "What the province has told us is that they're concerned if water did start to flow over top, it would start to erode the gravel structure and could send an uncontrolled amount of water downstream."
He said this scenario is what has prompted the evacuation alert.
Davies said that short-term work could aim to reduce the current level in the lake by siphoning out water, while slowly bringing down the dam, which would be better than allowing the dam to burst and having high volumes of water enter the creek all at once.
"We don't know for sure yet, but that's a hypothetical situation that could come," Davies said. "We'll definitely await what the engineer says."
It's not known who erected the dam or why, and Davies said that will be up to the ministry to investigate once the emergency has been managed.
"We've been wondering why as well," he added.
So far, the ministry has not directed the TNRD to ask people to stay off Fadear Lake.
